Renesas announces first products with the Cortex-M85
29
Nov
2023
Renesas beat everyone to the finish with the announcement of a new group of MCUs – the RA8M1 – based on the Cortex-M85. The newish ARM architecture (disclosed in 2020 and 2022) sports the Helium architecture that significantly boosts machine learning and digital signal processor tasks. This is a boon for the so-called Edge AI, where complex AI algorithms are made available close to the action, allowing more local intelligence and reducing the need to stream data to a server.
No significant changes.
Microchip added parts on a few families:
- The dsPIC33CDVL for motor control, with Full-Bridge MOSFET Gate Driver and LIN Transceiver
- PIC18F2xQ71 and Q83, with a dedicated developer page for the Q71 now
No change.
Nuvoton is quiet this month after a prolific October where they released the Cortex-M23 M2L31 Series for Motor Control.
No change.
It looks like Renesas beat everyone to the market with the first part numbers sporting a Cortex-M85.
Renesas hinted at the product at embedded world earlier this year. A few months later, it has now been announced as the RA8M1 group.
The RA8M1 delivers over 3000 CoreMark points at 480 MHz, targets high-performance and compute-intensive applications in Industrial Automation, Home Appliances, Smart Home, Consumer, Building/Home Automation and Medical/Healthcare market segments.
Here are the specifications for the group:
- 480MHz Arm® Cortex®-M85 with Helium™ MVE, TrustZone
- 1MB – 2MB Flash memory and 1MB of SRAM including TCM
- 32KB I/D Caches and 12KB Data Flash
- External memory interfaces (CS/SDRAM)
- Renesas Secure IP (RSIP-E51A)
- Scalable from 100-pin to 224-pin packages
- Ethernet, USB 2.0 HS/FS and CAN-FD, Octo SPI
The Cortex-M55 and M85 both feature the ARM Helium technology (M-Profile Vector Extension – MVE) designed for the Cortex-M processor series. It is an optional extension in the Armv8.1-M architecture and focuses on ML and DSP applications for embedded devices. The M55 was announced in 2020 while the M85 appeared in April 2022.
Helium technology is based on Single-Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) operations, with a vector size of 128-bit wide, and adds over 150 new scalar and vector instructions.
It brings quite a boost to the Cortex-M7 for compute intensive applications (source: ARM).
Renesas introduced 10 parts, with Digikey and Mouser stocking them up. Prices are around $10/1k for 1MB of Flash (e.g. the R7FA8M1AFECBD#BC0).
At the opposite end of the spectrum, SiLab wants to keep the 8-bit alive.
“The EFM8BB5 family is optimized for small form factor, low-cost applications that don’t need the added complexity or cost of a 32-bit solution. 8-bit MCUs have been a key tool for designers who are looking for simple solutions to the increasing complexity seen in embedded development. While other MCU manufacturers are pushing these designers to 32-bit solutions, Silicon Labs is investing in our 8-bit microcontroller portfolio to keep this tool in the engineer’s tool box.”
18 products were announced.
ST added the STM32WL33xx, a 64 MHz Cortex-M0+ wireless MCU in the sub-GHz band, with up to 256kB Flash and 32kB RAM.
The STM32WL33xx embeds an LCD driver, 12-bit, 8 channel ADC, analog comparator, DAC, LC sensor controller, RTC, IWDG, general purpose timers, AES-128, RNG, CRC, communication interfaces such as USART, SPI, and I2C. The STM32WL33xx comes in different package versions supporting up to 32 I/Os for the VFQFPN48 package and 17 I/Os for the VFQFPN32 package.
17 parts are available.
Note: it looks like ST is working on a Cortex-M55 part, according to this post.
TI continues its deployment of more Cortex-M0+ MSPM0L/G parts, 20 in total with 5 in production and 15 sampling.
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